Do we attribute intentional agency to humanoid robots?

Agnieszka Wykowska Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologia Genoa, Italy

UQÀM ISC DIC CRIA Cognitive Informatics Seminar Séminaire en informatique cognitive

Thursday, 10:30 am ET (Montreal time) October 6, 2022 Zoom: https://uqam.zoom.us/j/88481835073

Abstract: When predicting and explaining the behavior of other humans, we adopt the intentional stance, and refer to mental states in order to understand others’ actions. It is not clear, however, whether and when we adopt the intentional stance also towards artificial agents, such as humanoid robots. This talk will provide an overview of research conducted in my lab which addresses this question. I will present a tool for measuring the adoption of the intentional stance. The likelihood of adopting the intentional stance is coded in specific patterns of neural activity at rest. Interactive scenarios influence adoption of the intentional stance more than mere observation of subtle human-like characteristics of a robot’s behavior. Experiments using interactive joint action protocols with a humanoid robot to study the vicarious and joint sense of agency show that the robots’ motor repertoire and our ability to represent its actions with our own sensorimotor repertoire influence the vicarious sense of agency. Embedding a non-verbal adaptation of a “Turing test” In a human-robot joint action task showed that human-like variability in the robot’s simple button presses makes the robot pass the test. The talk will conclude with a discussion of the role of the intentional stance and sense of agency in other mechanisms of social cognition, and their implications in applied domains of social robotics in healthcare.

References:

Bossi, F., Willemse, C., Cavazza, J., Marchesi, S., Murino, V., Wykowska, A. (2020). The human brain reveals resting state activity patterns that are predictive of biases in attitudes towards robots. Science Robotics, 5:46, eabb6652: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abb6652 Marchesi, S., De Tommaso, D., Perez-Osorio, J., Wykowska A. (2022). Belief in sharing the same phenomenological experience increases the likelihood of adopting the intentional stance towards a humanoid robot. Technology, Mind and Behavior, 3(3): https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/tmb-tmb0000072.pdf Ciardo, F., De Tommaso, D., Wykowska, A. (2022). Human-like behavioural variability blues the distinction between a human and a machine in a nonverbal Turing test. Science Robotics, 7, eabo 1241: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abo1241 Roselli, C., Ciardo, F., De Tommaso, D., Wykowska, A. (2022). Human‐likeness and attribution of intentionality predict vicarious sense of agency over humanoid robot actions. Nature: Scientific Reports, 12:13845: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18151-6.pdf Note: for the papers behind paywall, please visit our website, where you can find access links to all papers: https://instanceproject.eu/publications/list-of-publications

Professor Agnieszka Wykowska leads the unit “Social Cognition in Human-Robot Interaction” at the Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy). The research foci of Prof. Wykowska are interdisciplinary, bridging psychology, cognitive neuroscience, robotics and healthcare. She combines cognitive neuroscience methods with human-robot interaction to understand the human brain mechanisms in interaction with other humans and with robots. Her research is also dedicated to applications of social robotics to healthcare: her team develops robot-assisted training protocols to help children diagnosed with autism-spectrum disorder in improving social skills.

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